Wife died and falling for her friend?? Eeeek!!

[blueskiesrock]

Hi.

I had a great marriage for 26 years and my wife died suddenly and unexpectedly 6 months ago. Friends have been great and I feel very supported but still very lonely.

A good friend of my wife's (we have all been friends ever since my wife and I met) has been superb at helping and she has never been married. We have lots in common and I am starting to have feelings for her and I suspect she might be too, however I am worried that if I try to move things on and she doesn't feel the way I do I'd lose the friendship and make myself look silly. We are both in our fifties so old enough to realise time marches on.

Also concerned friends will feel it is too soon but then they are not the one at home alone.

Ho Hum???

What to do?

I haven't rtwt yet so apologies if it's been said, but its not uncommon for the partner and bf of a deceased person to develop feelings for each other as they usually end up being 'thrown together' by their loss and would have a lot of shared memories.

You need to be sure that your feelings are genuine and not seeing her as an extension of your wife before having any kind of relationship and potentially upsetting your children.

Hi Blueskies. Good luck with everything. I don't have any practical advice but as I'm on the other side of this situation, I thought I'd share.

I have been dating a chap for about 6 months. He had been a widower for about 6 months when we started seeing one another. We both have "grown-up children". But young grown-ups. His youngest is 21. The same age as my daughter.

I hope his kids are OK with it. It sounds like they are. A lot of teasing from his sons. "Oh you're not coming home tonight, Dad? Wonder why that is?"

I know he fibbed to his sons about how he met me. Told them he'd run into an old friend rather than tell them he was actively looking to meet someone on the Internet. Tbh, this was meant to be a FWB thing but feelings happened on both sides.

No plans to ever marry, move in together etc. I don't want to be his kids' "new mummy".

He talks about his late wife fairly frequently. Usually in a "sharing funny anecdotes from our past". She sounds great from what I've heard of her - funny, filthy and fiercely feminist. Apparently when she was dying, she told him he ought to get a girlfriend and/or a dog. He still wears his wedding ring. Which I think is completely normal.

When we got to the anniversary of his wife's death, I told him that I'll be as supportive as he wants me to be and understand if he wanted me to step away for however long.

I have (very briefly) met one of his sons and he has (very briefly) met my daughter.

I don't understand what he's going through. I have no experience of cancer or bereavement. I was a single parent from the off.

He's a lovely chap. We make each other laugh and look after one another. I would hate for him to be judged for dating me 6 months after his wife's death.

You sound like a nice chap too, OP.

Good luck with everything!

This v scenario has occured with a friend who died last year . Her husband moved on in a few months to someone he knew years ago and is all over fb telling the world how happy he is . His son is obviously devastated and it has caused all sorts of issues
I think it is way too soon. How can you know what you want at this stage. Personally i would back off and save your children the hurt and if she is right for you then revisit it in the future.
P.s. i would be v upset if my dh could move on as quickly. I really dont get it ! .

Hi Blue, if you think you have found love, then accept it, and go with it.
I'm sure your children would like to see you happy again. Life is short, there are no rules, I wish you all the best.

Christ it takes me about a year to replace a beloved pet 😳
6 months eh I hope my husband dies first then, just for the sake of the kids 😕

The difference being, Painfully, that a human being can never be replaced. Let alone a beloved spouse.

All very well but the children's feelings should be considered not just the OPs.

6 months is way too soon. Think of the children. You're only thinking with your . Disgraceful. In Motherless Daughters it talks about how the majority of men who had remarried quickly after a bereavement had a "very poor" relationship with their children. That's what will happen to you, you seem so blasé about the whole matter. Yuck!

For the sake of the kids too soon.

Giess what, BunnyBardot, widows and widowers are still human beings, however pummelled and saddened, and do still feel perfectly natural sexual attraction. What, pray, is yuck about that?

He's not talking about remarriage after 6 months - he's talking about being attracted to someone and whether to tell her. The fact he's thinking about that to the extent of posting on here makes it clear he's not at all blasé about it.

stonecircle Well I've been in OP's situation, as have other wids on this thread, and your 'advice' is exceedingly ill-informed. Living with an entire focus on supporting ones children really is not desirable - coming to terms with that, and thinking about what other purposes and pleasures there still could be for ones own life is an important part of grief therapy.

My children were pleased when I met someone wonderful because they were happy I wasn't lonely any more - my eldest changed her uni plans off the back of it (feeling free to travel rather than stay near to home).

And anyone who has typed the words 'replacing' or 'moving on' should be ashamed of themselves. There's no way of replacing, and no moving on from losing, a spouse. The agony of missing them is always there. But that doesn't mean living life in sackcloth and ashes, devoid of pleasure and positive emotion.

It's entirely possible to be happy and sad, both at the same time. I know, because I invariably am.

I am not ashamed of using the words moving on because that is exactly what the person is doing. They may not have forgotten their spouse but they are moving on to a new stage of their life so what is offensive about using that term?

They may not have forgotten their spouse but they are moving on to a new stage of their life so what is offensive about using that term?

You seriously can't see what is offensive about it?

Er no !

I would be v upset if my dh could move on as quickly.

Look at how you used the phrase, for your answer. Loaded with emotion - and judgement. And assuming that feelings for someone else means the end of grieving. I've been there - you haven't; it doesn't work like that.

If i have upset you then i am genuinely sorry but i was stating the fact that i would be hurt to think he could do that. And i have known 3 friends whose husbands have indeed done just that and in every case it caused a lot of pain and heartache to already devastated children. I do feel that the impact on them should be a high priority for the grieving widow or widower .
I am not saying that is the case in your family btw but the op doesnt seem to have factored in his kids as any kind of priority so yes i was a bit judgemental there. I will give you that one .

Evening folks. Just a reminder that if you have suspicions about a poster we ask you to report them rather than trollhunt on the thread itself. Thank you.

My Mum died unexpectedly when I was 24. My dad started dating very quickly and moved a women into the family home. My brother still lived there. He then married a different lady quite quickly. It ruined our relationship. We never had time to grieve together or build a relationship together. His wife use to call my mum "your ex wife" which really hurt me.

I was going to write a long and angry rant aimed at those posters who lack compassion and empathy hugely. But found an article online which said it all.

ericaroman.me/2017/07/07/a-widows-rage-defense-of-patton-oswalts-engagement/

Sorry about your wife op and the troll hunters.

Just ask your friend outright if there are any others feelings. Be honest and say you aren't forcing the point but are feeling a little confused and that you treasure her friendship and would never want to jeopardise that but is there anything romantic in it. She will probably be horrified but maybe she does have feelings for you and it would be sad for both of you to miss out. Good luck.

Well I've certainly learned a lot here. Thankyou to the widow/ers for spelling it out; and for Winnie's link.

As for ... why do we feel we have to grieve - for many years? - my 'many years' comment was based on my children's grief after suddenly and unexpectedly losing their dad. My kids were teenagers and the grief has been immense and longstanding. It's not a case of feeling we 'have to' grieve, it's a case of actually grieving.

Somerville you make a good point that a bereaved spouse can love fairly quickly afterwards - but do children (even adult 'children') have the emotional capacity to manage eg love and loss at the same time in the way a bereaved spouse can?

My mum's dad married very quickly after my mum's mum died young. My mum was in her early 20s, married with children, but it hurt my mum terribly that her dad remarried so quickly. And my mum isn't a sentimental sort.

The link about Patton Oswald doesn't even mention his daughter in reference to the engagement. She was 8 years old and being told her dad plans to marry another woman 15 months after her mum died. And the woman who writes the blog, her kid was a year old!

Maybe if us kids who've been there could write a blog at age 12, 8, 14 or whatever, fair enough. I have absolutely no issue with people moving on, however quickly, when it's only themselves to consider.

do children (even adult 'children') have the emotional capacity to manage eg love and loss at the same time in the way a bereaved spouse can?

That's an interesting question in context of this thread, springy.

I haven't seen any loss of emotional capacity in my DC while coping with their grief. Quite the opposite actually - they've become more compassionate and thoughtful. And something that surprised me is how quickly they returned to having positive emotional experiences at the same time as being so sad. The fact that happiness is not now over was something we all had to learn very quickly. "Daddy died. We didn't" has become a family saying.

And I believe that goes for us spouses too. So if my DC had found it hard to accept me falling in love again, I'd have seen him without them around, and planned not to take it further until they left home. But not ended it. Because a real difference in how the loss of a parent and spouse generally differs is the immensity of the loneliness when one loses a spouse. It's something that surprised me - I was braced for the agony of the grief. But not for the loneliness that hit once my kids fell asleep each night.

Back to kids... mine have never felt I'm trying to replace their daddy. They know, like me, that to do so would be impossible. And they know that just like I can love all of them with my whole heart at once, I can still love their daddy and fall in love again. Maybe children find this easier to understand than adults, in some ways.

One of my children thanked the second love of my life, 'for helping Mum find her laugh again'. Another of them pointed out to me that I'd got better at grieving since I met him - totally true, but I hadn't noticed. (Forgive me - won't go into the details of that one, to personal for this thread.)

To sum up, my own experiences but also those of friends in my support group make me pretty sure it's not the surviving parent having romantic feelings that hurts children. It's how those feelings are handled.

What a beautiful and insightful post, Somerville.

Somerville, I posted on the very first page of your thread saying 'go for it' but you had been widowed 16 months by then and I think thats far different to the supposed 6 months mentioned in the OP here.

Recently I read that you're expecting and I was happy for you but minutes later I read the post saying you were struggling emotionally and taking anti-depressants and my first thought was oh no, followed by 'this all happened to soon'.

Im really scared Im going to put my foot in it but I am wondering how it all ties in with your previous post which is beautiful to read but seems to gloss over a lot.

I really hope that didn't sound nasty.